That September we were camped on the eastern edge of a lake deep in the northern forests of Manitoba. The lake was unnamed on the maps, so I called it “Loon Lake” as I had heard their mournful calls the first time I stepped down from the float plane onto the shore. It was the end of my second summer in the bush. The leaves of the poplars in the draw were golden, the summer blackfly plague was over, and the lake was glass calm, mirroring the jack pines edging the shoreline. I had a free day as they were moving drill, they being the foreman, the two drillers and their two helpers. I had marked the new drill site the day before and was feeling more than usually optimistic that with the next drillhole, we might find what we were looking for – a copper and nickel bonanza that would make the company’s fortune. It was the perfect start to what I thought would be the perfect day. I would spend it fishing.
By the time I’d finished my daily radio call to my boss, the camp was empty, save for me and the cook, Jaques Baudry. I liked Jaques who was a French/Cree Metis and told bush stories that none of us believed. He was an appalling cook, but cooks prepared to live and work in the bush were hard to come by. At least he could make coffee. He would throw a handful of grounds into the coffee pot add boiling water and leave the pot simmering on the woodstove all morning. It was lethal. One deep winter’s day he baked a cake and gave me a piece saying, “If you eat that, I’d not go out on the ice. She so heavy you drop straight through.” But that late summer day, with winter long forgotten, he grilled a slab of steak for me and put it between slices of bread and said, “You catch no fish, at least you no go hungry.”
“Thanks Jaques,” I said, “But I’ll bring some fish back for sure. Walleye for dinner tonight.” I was reasonably confident as I had fished the lake a couple of weeks before and caught half a dozen golden walleye which were excellent eating. And the lake, remote and inaccessible as it was, had probably never been fished by anybody else.
I had a neat, wooden, double-ender canoe moored beside the dock the drillers had built during the week of our arrival. It was a lovely little vessel which I loaded with my 22 rifle, two fishing rods, tackle box and lunch pack. I did not need to take a drink as the lake water was pure and crystal clear. I sat myself in the stern, took up the paddle and headed out. I loved being on the water as I grew up by the sea and boats were part of my boyhood. As I slipped across the still water, the loons called from the far shore. I paused paddling to listen. The only other sound was the breeze whispering in the pines. The cry was a lonesome echo across the silent lake. I had heard wolves a couple of evenings before and the loons’ cries were almost the same as that drawn-out howl. Had evolution in the same environment given these two so different animals so similar a call? A sound that carried far and clearly through the bush. I shook my head and paddled on.
It took me maybe forty minutes to reach the mouth of an inlet where I had caught fish before. I moved to the middle of the canoe and tied a simple red and white spoon to the end of the line. There was no need to cast far; just a simple overhead flick and the nylon line spooled near silently off the reel. Plop – the lure landed on the water. I reeled in. On the sixth cast – wham. I struck back and a fish was on and running, the reel screaming. I pulled and reeled, pulled and reeled and within a few minutes a beautiful walleye flopped and gasped in the bottom of my canoe, sunlight spangling off its golden scales. I caught four more within an hour, not quite enough for supper, I thought. I cast another dozen times but the fish had stopped biting. I moved to the middle of the canoe and laid the rod down, leaving the spoon just dangling in the water. I ate my steak sandwich as the canoe drifted out into the lake. I watched a loon take off. It was a big, ungainly bird. To reach liftoff, it ran for a hundred yards or more, its webbed feet slapping the water, wings flapping and neck outstretched. Finally airborne, it gave a wail of triumph.
The sun warm on my back, I was leaning against the thwart, dozing when there was a sudden commotion. My rod and reel were dragged forward and jammed in the prow of the canoe. I scrambled up, leaned out and grabbed the line just as the torpedo shape of huge pike jumped clear of the water, head shaking. I could see the spoon protruding from its jaws. The line cut into my hand as the pike plunged back into the lake. I leaned further and further out. The canoe wobbled then capsized and I was in the frigid water. Surfacing, spitting, I put one arm over the upturned hull, then the other and dragged myself up. I managed to flip the canoe over and crawled across the gunwale to sit soaked and shivering in the bottom of the boat. Everything was gone – rods and reel, tackle box, my lovely little .22, and of course my catch. The paddle floated a few yards off. I got to my knees and used my hands as sculls to reach it.
A slight breeze arose, rippling the water as I sat shivering, paddling miserably back to camp. I moored at the dock, got out and stood cold and sodden on the deck watching as a loon executed a perfect belly-flop landing. It bobbed on the water for a minute or two then stretched its neck and let out its long and mournful wail. I turned away and walked wet and empty-handed to the shore.